# Clerk MCP server vs Nango (slim)

> Nango scores 65.5 (B) to Clerk's 61.9 (C) for oauth for agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-nango.md (~4,500 tokens) · this version ~2,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-nango.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-nango
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Nango scores 65.5 (B) on agent readiness against Clerk MCP server's 61.9 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do oauth for agents.

- Clerk MCP server: C 61.9, rank #586 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clerk-mcp.min.md
- Nango: B 65.5, rank #420 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nango.min.md
- Clerk MCP server, good for Developers building on Clerk who want a coding agent to set up applications, users, domains and production instances. Also No incidents deducted, where Nango loses 8 points for them.
- Nango, good for A product that connects many users to many SaaS APIs and wants tokens, refresh, syncs and a per-tenant MCP surface in one place, with source you can read. Ahead on Reliability, 78 against 65; Schema & documentation, 85 against 65; Agent ergonomics, 74 against 63; Security & auth, 71 against 65; Maintenance & community, 90 against 77; Transparency & trust, 77 against 57.

| Category | Clerk MCP server | Nango |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 65 | 78 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 85 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 63 | 74 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 65 | 71 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 77 | 90 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 57 | 77 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Clerk MCP server | Nango |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Clerk, Inc. | Nango |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.clerk.com/mcp` | `https://api.nango.dev` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Licence | none | Elastic License 2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 14 | none |
| MCP registry | `io.github.clerk/mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 469k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, Nango +20: Clerk MCP server 65 (Typed JSON Schema by protocol, not read because every tool needs sign-in (15 of 25). llms.txt and a .md copy of every docs page (10). The docs table says what each of the 14 tools is for (12 of 20). Input typing not verifiable without a session (5 of 15). Example prompts and an FAQ on permission errors (8 of 15). Dated public changelog with an MCP entry on 15 October 2026 (15). 15 + 10 + 12 + 5 + 8 + 15 = 65.); Nango 85 (OpenAPI 3.1 file in the repository at docs/spec.yaml, last changed 30 October 2026 (25). llms.txt and Markdown docs (10). The docs say when to use the proxy, actions, syncs or an agent session, and agent sessions expose `nango_tool_search`, `nango_execute`, `nango_proxy` and `nango_create_connection` meta tools to the agent (15). The OpenAPI file types the management endpoints, but the proxy passes provider requests through untyped by design (10). Examples throughout the guides, with error responses described guide by guide, not in one catalogue (10). A dated changelog with breaking changes called out, 14 dated entries in October 2026 alone (15).)
- Transparency & trust, Nango +20: Clerk MCP server 57 (Closed service under terms naming Clerk, Inc., last updated 1 October 2026 (15). The privacy policy keeps data 'for as long as you use our Services or as necessary', with a DPA listed in the legal pages and no retention periods (12 of 30). No deprecation policy for the MCP server found (5 of 20). Subprocessors referenced through the DPA, list not read (8 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 8 = 40.); Nango 77 (Source on GitHub under the Elastic License 2.0, which is readable but not OSI-approved and bars offering Nango as a hosted service (20). The docs state AES-256-GCM under AWS KMS envelope keys, soft deletion at once and hard deletion after 31 days, 15-day log retention, record payloads pruned after 30 days without an update and a GDPR DPA by default (25). Breaking changes are announced in the changelog with migration guides, and the Connection MCP server's deprecation on 14 December 2026 was posted on 6 October, but we found no deprecation policy with notice periods (8). The docs say tokens sit in PostgreSQL in AWS, but we didn't find a public subprocessor list outside the trust centre (10).)
- Reliability, Nango +13: Clerk MCP server 65 (Graded as a hosted service. incident.io status page at status.clerk.com with components for authentication, sessions, webhooks and SCIM, but none for the MCP server (15). The feed shows several resolved incidents since August (an upstream SMS issue on 29 October, Apple sign-in for development instances, an incident across all components on 3 November, resolved), none read as a long core outage (20). Backend API limits published with numbers (1,000 requests per 10 seconds in production), not for the MCP server itself (10 of 15). 429 with Retry-After documented, no idempotency guidance for writes (10 of 15). No SLA found; Business support has 'No response-time SLA' (0). The MCP server isn't labelled beta (10). 15 + 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 65.); Nango 78 (Better Stack page at status.nango.dev with history, though it tracks one component, Nango Cloud Health (20). Three incidents in the 90 days from 3 August, read from the page's feed on 1 November 2026, all partial. Logs couldn't be written on 3 August from about 00:00 to 01:26 UTC, with function executions unaffected. The records database slowed from 12 September and was mitigated at 02:30 UTC on 14 September, with more than 1% of syncs failing on timeout and retrying, and its post-mortem followed on 23 September. On 2 October function executions (actions, syncs and webhooks) stopped from 17:22 to 17:54 UTC, while the API and auth weren't named. No outage of the whole service (20). Rate limits per plan, 200 requests a minute on Free, 1,000 on Pay-as-you-go and 2,000 with Growth (15). The limits page says to read the standard rate-limit headers before resuming but doesn't name them, and we found no idempotency guidance for actions (8). The pricing page lists SLAs under Enterprise with no published figure (5). Auth, proxy and agent sessions are sold as GA (10).)
- Maintenance & community, Nango +13: Clerk MCP server 77 (Changelog entries up to 6 November 2026 (30). 24 dated changelog entries since August (20). Public changelog, docs with Ask AI and support by email (12 of 15). In the official registry as io.github.clerk/mcp-server (version 0.1.0, updated 9 March 2026, before the revamp) and official SDKs (15). No package to read (0). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 0 = 77. Registry presence read from Anchor Terminal's own daily import of the official MCP registry (/api/v1/registry.json, 6 November 2026), not the registry's API.); Nango 90 (Release v0.71.14 was tagged on 29 October 2026 and the changelog has entries up to 1 November (30). Twelve releases from v0.71.3 (3 August) to v0.71.14, and 14 dated changelog entries in October (20). Issue numbers have passed 7,000 with 31 open per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November because GitHub's pages refuse our reader (20). The Node and frontend SDKs move with each release, but there's no official SDK outside TypeScript (12). Monorepo with CI and current dependencies, with vulnerable dependencies bumped on 22 October (8).)
- Agent ergonomics, Nango +11: Clerk MCP server 63 (14 tools, two of them for sending feedback to Clerk (15). list_users takes filters; no paging documented (10 of 20). The FAQ explains permission errors and how to fix them (8 of 20). 'Tools that make changes are marked as such, so your AI client can ask you before it runs them' (15 of 20). Official SDKs in many languages and a CLI (15). 15 + 10 + 8 + 15 + 15 = 63.); Nango 74 (An agent session serves only the tools for one tenant's tagged connections through its own MCP URL, with a proxy meta tool instead of hundreds of tool definitions (20). Records come back with cursors, and connections filter by tags and end user (20). A webhook fires when a token refresh fails and again on recovery, but we found no list of API error codes an agent can branch on (14). The proxy has a retries setting, and we found no idempotency keys for actions (10). Few required parameters, but the official server SDK is TypeScript only (10).)
- Security & auth, Nango +6: Clerk MCP server 65 (OAuth with a published scope table and one workspace per connection (30). Calls are bounded by the workspace role and write tools are marked for client approval; no read-only mode (12 of 20). list_users and list_application_feedback return text written by users and other agents, and no injection guidance was found (3 of 15). No audit log of MCP calls found (0). security.txt with a vulnerability disclosure policy and safe harbour, SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA since May 2022, penetration testing and published postmortems (20). 30 + 12 + 3 + 0 + 20 = 65.); Nango 71 (Environment API keys take Full access or custom scopes (agent sessions need `environment:agent_sessions:write`), the changelog of 22 April 2026 sets out rotation by issuing a replacement key, checking its last use and deleting the old one, and since 19 October the account-level API can create keys with scopes and change them. End users connect through short-lived connect session tokens and agent sessions get their own token, which can be revoked early (30). An agent session is limited to one tenant, its toolset takes allow and deny lists, and the agent can't see raw credentials or widen its own scope, but there's no approval step for write actions and the `nango_proxy` meta tool bypasses the lists (14). Agent sessions pass third-party API content straight to the agent and we found no prompt-injection guidance (5). Logs for 15 days on every plan, and an audit trail (added 3 September 2026) only on Enterprise (10). security.txt valid to 31 December 2027, SECURITY.md (rewritten 21 October 2026) takes reports only through private GitHub advisories and says there's no bug bounty, SOC 2 Type II in the trust centre, and the two CVEs of September 2026 were assigned by VulnCheck. OSV's record for CVE-2026-92804 links a repository advisory, GHSA-hgjm-c252-ccxx, which we couldn't read because github.com refuses our reader (12). 30 + 14 + 5 + 10 + 12 = 71.)